| DONALD EFFINGHAM-MUDDE AND DAMIEN |
| Nineteen year old Damien is a mad-keen, cool-dude, ‘up for it’ angler, who won’t miss any opportunity to go fishing. He has an aged uncle, an angler of some renown and a staunch traditionalist, Donald Effingham-Mudde, who spent his earlier years in service to the Viceroy of India. His family jokingly refer to him as WIMDOC, which is an acronym for the phase he uses to start just about every conversation (“Well, in my day, of course….”). The old boy has come to stay with Damien’s parents for an extended visit, giving the pair the opportunity to go fishing together. Donald’s fishing references are impeccable as, according to him, he taught the Taylor Brothers all they know. However, both participants view the opportunity from slightly differing perspectives. Damien really doesn’t want to be landed with babysitting some doddering old fart, whilst Donald sees this as a perfect opportunity to show this young pup how to do things properly. They are bound to get on famously – aren’t they? |
DONALD’S DREAM
It was Christmas Eve at Damien’s house. All that afternoon the family had been wrapping presents and the men of the house had been ‘helping’ in the kitchen preparing the dinner for Christmas Day. When it was all over, Damien suggested they should walk down to the local pub for a couple of drinks. To Damien’s surprise and delight, Donald said he would rather stay in, if that was all right.
There followed a brief skirmish between Damien and his mum, firstly she was trying to get Donald to come along, and when he declined she was concerned that there might be a problem. Damien, impatient as ever, was holding the front door wide open, and his comment that, “The old git said he doesn’t want to go so don’t try and force him,” wasn’t seen to be in the true sprit of Christmas.
After some heavy duty tut-tutting, Damien’s mum made a promise that they wouldn’t stay too long at the pub, a statement that didn’t meet with Damiens’ approval, the family set off. Donald stood by the Christmas tree in the bay window and waved them goodbye. He paused there for a while looking up and down the street, mostly in darkness, but studded with patches of almost defiant twinkling lights here and there.
He thought back to Christmases past, that Victorian vision on a thousand Xmas cards decorated with images of children in capes and breeches having snowball fights and building snowmen in the freshly fallen snow. In addition there would be Victorian ladies in crinoline skirts and bonnets and gentlemen in frock coats and tall hats staring into the bow fronted shops, whose window panes always had a frosting of snow in the corners.
Donald wondered if it had ever really been like that, and thinking back to the many Christmases he had seen he couldn’t remember hardly any when it had actually snowed, and certainly not during the years he spent in India. In fact, he thought, probably only got a few more Christmases left to go, so not very likely that he was going to see another white one now.
He wandered back towards his favourite fireside chair, pausing at the drinks cabinet to pour himself a generous malt, thinking that some carol singing on the radio might be nice. But after jabbing every button on the music system he had only managed to play one of Damien’s CD’s at a volume slightly less than Concorde taking off. “Bloody garbage, bip-bop, noise, can’t call that music,” he spluttered, almost choking on a gulp of whisky.
Despite pointing and punching the buttons on every remote control he could find, even waving the cordless phone at the noise, it still didn’t stop it. Pulling all the plugs out of the socket did, however, along with the TV and video. He looked at all the flashing displays begging to be reset, and decided he would tell the family there had been a power cut.
As he ambled off and settled down by the fire, he gazed across to the Christmas tree, covered in flashing fairy lights, tinsel and baubles. Underneath, all the presents that had taken the family half the day to wrap, with paper, scissors and tape passing from room to room, doors being firmly closed to prevent prying eyes from spoiling the surprise.
Donald chuckled to himself, probably there were families doing just the same thing all over the country in thousands of homes. He pulled his empty pipe out from his cardigan pocket and chewed on the stem for a while. He toyed with the idea of going outside to smoke a bowl of Dark Shag, as Damien’s family absolutely forbade him from smoking indoors, but he was too comfortable in the chair now, so the pipe went back in his pocket.He sipped at the malt and thought, this is his family, or rather all that was left of it. His own, much younger brother, Damien’s father, was his only blood relative, no one else now on his side of the family. Donald had never married, although there had been quite a few ladies in his life, of course, and even now there were a couple in the Over 60’s cub that made a beeline for him once the sherry bottles came out.
Other than that, there was Damien, who he loved like the son he never had, although he would never tell the young pup a thing like that. He knew that at the moment, when it came to fishing, he still had the upper hand due to his experience, although Damien learnt fast, and it wouldn’t be long before he caught up. He certainly wouldn’t want to take a doddering old man out fishing then, thought Donald, and as he raised the whisky tumbler to his lips a single tear rolled down his cheek and plopped into his whisky.
Donald shook his head, then threw another log on the fire and watched as a small shower of sparks leapt up the chimney. He gazed at the flames and his thoughts drifted back to happier times like the day many years ago when he was showing his new prototype electric bite alarm to young Dick Walker. He had made it out of a 9-volt battery, a doorbell chime contained in a huge wooden cigar box and a set of points from a Morris Oxford taped to a rod rest. The line was put between the contacts of the points and when it was pulled out, the bell went off.
Couldn’t turn it off of course, a small technical glitch that Dick Walker said he would work on. In the meantime it was still going off…….. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! Dick Walker had his hands over his ears, and curiously Damien was there too, shouting above the noise, and coughing very loudly. Something about the old git being too pissed to hear the smoke alarm, putting too many logs on the fire, sparks setting light to the hearth rug.
Other people were there, shaking him and trying to pull him out of his chair, Donald was very confused by all this, all he wanted to do was drift off to sleep….
We all know by now that it’s Kevin Perkins who writes as Herbert Henshall, so if you want a copy of the hilarious new booklet based on those two great characters Donald and Damien: ‘The Early Adventures of Donald and Damien’
